


Entrer dans les Détails

by oisiflaneur



Series: La Ritournelle [1]
Category: Fate/stay night (Visual Novel), Fate/stay night - All Media Types, Fate/stay night: Unlimited Blade Works (Anime 2014)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-09
Updated: 2018-01-09
Packaged: 2019-03-02 17:34:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13323087
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/oisiflaneur/pseuds/oisiflaneur
Summary: He's not supposed to remember as much as he does, as fast as he does, of his past lives. He's not even supposed to exist.But the strongest memories are always of her.





	Entrer dans les Détails

**Author's Note:**

> this is technically a commission done in exchange for a pizza, and i was allowed to use shared aus, so it's extremely selfindulgent. i'm sorry lots of the worldbuilding is vague but it's not as though archer understands what the hell is going on either.
> 
> **content warnings** are archer being reckless and getting himself killed way too often, so nothing that isn't already in canon. oh, and spoilers if you squint at the social links, so be aware of all the major ones for fate's three main routes.
> 
> and hey, i have a sideblog just for writing now! it's [here](https://wordsyflaneur.tumblr.com/)! the old tag is [here](http://oisiflaneur.tumblr.com/tagged/graywrites) while i get everything moved over.

It only kicks in when he's about twenty or so.

He had inklings before, but never anything strong enough to piece together. Flashes, mostly, and a strange feeling that the young man looking back at him from the mirror looks _off_ , somehow. The early greying hair, maybe.  
But the puzzle pieces only start to snap together after puberty, after graduation, after he at least _thinks_ that he knows what he wants to do with his life. As a repeat, he has to start as early as possible. The choices that determine that get easier, in a way, once the pieces start to come together and resemble a whole picture.  
It's not a nice picture.

So he tries not to think about it, which works. For a little while. But as the days blur into weeks blur into months, he starts to find himself remembering more and more. Even without somebody else there to remind him.  
And there is nobody to remind him, for whatever reason. He doesn't run across anyone who sparks more than a passing recognition. This is normal, of course: after reincarnating, who’s to say you’ll be anywhere near the same people? The same places?  
But it’s also not abnormal. Coincidence finds a way. So much of reincarnation isn’t an exact science, or really a science at all. Conjecture at best. Sometimes probability acquiesces. Sometimes you pass through the lives of the same people over and over, clockwork, the orbits of planets intersecting.

For him there are no familiar faces. Usually, they just remind him of somebody else, but he can never pin the names down quite the same way he can the gesture or the turn of phrase that rings familiar.  
He knows: the peevish flick of her hair over her shoulder when he flirts.  
He knows: _stupid Shirou, I hate you!_

Any girl doth protest too much and he thinks, _ah_ , there she is, not even knowing who he’s remembering in the first place. But then the brief flicker passes and there’s nothing.  
Just some girl.

It makes being social far more trouble than it's worth. He sees no point in adding more names and faces to the out-of-focus cast lurking in his subconscious. No need to dwell on the twinge when he sees black hair and a red coat. He keeps his head down, he does his job, and he goes home at night to an empty apartment. He likes routine. It's a decent enough life.  
But he can't quash the nagging feeling that something is missing from it.

* * *

He meets himself first. It makes sense, in a twisted, cruel kind of way.

For one brief, beautifully terrible moment, he fears that Shirou is exactly the same as him, in a different suit of skin. Maybe he’s one man in two bodies. Some kind of freak reincarnation accident.

But they’re not a mirror. Shirou looks like he used to, without so many lines on his face, the premature gray or the desert tan he hasn’t been able to shake. Without the permanent scowl. The sharp edges.

He has no reason for them. It becomes clear very quickly that, unlike Archer, the other man doesn't remember anything outside what's to be expected. He doesn't remember dying. Not the first time that they did, not even his own most recent ending.  
Archer _despises_ him for it.

A fraction of it, he'll admit, is plain old jealousy. How fortunate this other version of himself is, not to have every mistake he's made carved into his memory not just for this life but the next. If ignorance truly is bliss, than Shirou Emiya should be the happiest man on the planet.

But most of it is more like disappointment. Or perhaps impatience. Having to see what he used to be like, naive and bumbling and so very, very open – he can’t stand it. His heart just isn't worn on his sleeve, it's highlighted in neon. He’s a fool and Archer detests him for it.

At the very least, the feeling is mutual.

* * *

He hates that he's gotten used to it.

It's never instant, of course. For a few years at least, he gets to be a normal person. A baby. A boy. A young man.  
But he never stays _new_ past that threshold.

There's always a catalyst, something that topples the first domino and brings the others crashing into his brain at the least opportune moments. Generally backwards, because nothing can ever be the easy way, and generally when some vaguely familiar sound or scent drifts past him.

So often it’s her.

He's drawn to the institute, as he has been before. Who doesn’t want to know how reincarnation works? There’s as many research grants for that as there is to cure cancer. Why some people die and reincarnate, a trickle of life after life, and why some never die in the first place, lingering as long as they can.

Chaldea isn’t the most well-known of the life research centers, but it pays well and there’s always a need for maintenance in these sorts of places. Nothing he can’t fix, after all.

Turns out, somehow, their lives just hadn't lined up. As soon as he catches sight of her, black hair trailing behind her in the white halls like ribbons, he sucks a breath in through his teeth. It only takes a moment for him to remember exactly who she is.  
He almost wishes that he hadn't.

Despite being an heiress, perfectly able to sit back and live off her accumulated wealth if she wanted, she's taken up a position as a theory teacher. She's better established than he is, a few years older and benefiting from the experience -- not that he doesn't have that in spades. But he can't reveal that to a pack of scientists studying the nature of the cycle, not when he's an outlier. This time he’s applied to the think tank as a janitor, and as such has to steal glimpses of her through the glass panes of classroom doors when she happens to be giving a lecture.

Despite his best efforts to be subtle, she does in fact eventually notice him. Of course she does. She's Rin, sharp and observant and clever. Beautiful, which she uses to her advantage even though she hates that that’s all people see. Scathing, when she wants to be. A touch cruel to make up for her soft heart.

He wouldn't have her any other way.

* * *

That iteration sets the tone for a great deal of the ones that follow.

They dance around each other for months, sometimes _years_ if one or both are feeling particularly stubborn. She pulls him in and holds him at arm's length in turns, and he tries to convince himself that it's better not to get attached. He'll just be leaving her again at some point, right?

And yet, whenever he encounters her, she manages to draw him into her orbit, and he finds that he _can't_ , actually, leave her. 

Not until something makes him, at least.

* * *

The lives when he can't find her, it's like a baby tooth not quite ready to fall out of his jaw. He distracts himself, throws himself into his work, tries anything he can to recapture the uncertainty of those first early lives, when he knew that something was missing but not quite what. It was easier to be blind to it than to know and keep picking the scab.

Anything's better than just waiting for her and whiling the days away.

That's not a judgment on Sakura, of course. Even if he disapproves of her tastes, he can't blame her for settling in and waiting for her partner to be reborn and drawn to the place where they met. But he could never manage that. She has her cooking to keep her busy, and he… Well, he gets into the family business. At the very least, it keeps things interesting.

Sakura is stable, she's a fixture in his existences, a signpost of sorts. He always knows that a visit to the institute won't be a waste, since she's always there with news and a hot meal. The first thing she says each time he arrives is either an office number, or she asks how he's been. If it's a number, he knows where to find Rin. If she makes small talk, he won't be hanging around long.

It’s better for both of them if Rin is there. Yes, the sisters have never been as comfortable as they should, never as close, but they make the effort more and more every life. Archer watches the resentment and anxiousness go out of Sakura bit by bit, every time Rin comes back to them and calls Sakura her sister. Archer stands by and lets them. No, true, it’s not his business – but he likes an excuse to cook for three instead of two.

* * *

Back to the grind, wherever that may be. Usually it's wherever there's violence or turmoil. Even when his heart goes out of it, when he regards the idea of self-sacrifice with tired contempt, well… it’s the only thing he’s good at anymore.  
He’ll always be his father’s boy.

Thankfully, they don't have to directly deal with that very often. He supposes he's lucky that run-ins with his father are rare -- well, with his "brother" now, so many lives later, but he could never quite get accustomed to that -- since they both tend to gravitate to the same career. Outside of merc work, their encounters are as awkward as they are brief.

One time, they’re on the same side. They don’t talk much, but they work in tandem easily. He relinquishes the position of sniper to Kiritsugu without contest, running interference for him down below. Lines them up for the bullet.

Even without meaning to, Kiritsugu taught him everything he knows.

They don’t talk about the whys or hows. Kiritsugu is practical above sentimental, even if it’s practicality in service of sentimentality. They decide, in a booth at a dingy bar in exactly nowhere in the middle east, that it’s best Shirou not see him again. Illya made her choice, too. She’ll kill him if he even tries. Kiritsugu’s mouth twists downward, almost imperceptibly, when he tells him that. No more daughters, no more sons, Archer thinks. Killing’s all that’s left.

Another time, they’re opposite each other. Hired guns, no matter their feelings, have to go where there’s work. It was going to happen eventually. Despite that – he still remembers, as he does everything, the faint disappointed frown. _Sorry, old man,_ he thinks.

He’s almost sincere in that.

* * *

His sister is another fixture, a small oasis of calm that he tries to visit at least every few years. Maybe anomalies run in the family, because something went awry with her last reformation; though never _quite_ what she tells people. She should have been the same when she pulled herself together; same body, same thoughts, same memories. 

She’d been the same ever since she was Juzteaze. Permanents don’t have to care about death: they get to ignore it completely, tug their bodies back together if anything happens, living testaments to flaunted entropy. But then, here’s Illya, fresh as a daisy and equally dainty.

What happened to Irisviel will stay a subject of speculation. Illya always has a lie ready to explain herself. Sometimes even he forgets the truth. Though, not having been there to meet his adopted mother – maybe she never told him the truth in the first place. That much wouldn't have changed, at least.

Little does, for Illya.

Being a permanent has plenty of benefits, one of which is being able to accumulate wealth without having to set up inheritances for yourself. The Einzberns have always been of significant means, and now Illya is the lone surviving heir. Good thing, as well: throwing around as much money as she's now able tends to make people disinclined to ask questions about the eternal princess.  
And, well, privacy is something that he always appreciates. So one of those opulent castle guest bedrooms is designated as his; although he uses it more often when he doesn't have a paramour to slip away from, or bring with him. 

Two of the most important women in his lives, and after centuries their bickering still gives him a headache.

* * *

The lives that they _do_ find each other are calmer, but not always considerably longer. He always manages to find some cause to throw himself at, another broken cog in the clock of human history that he has to try and fix. He always has that urge to fix things, be it people or machines.

He wishes to god that he didn’t.

Once, she puts her connections to work and lands a job as a diplomat, crooning that _travel and luxury await them!_ as she lolls onto him in bed. She thinks it's an acceptable compromise, keeping him occupied without putting himself directly in harm's way. She doesn't account for her own sharp tongue making more enemies than he does as she climbs the ladder.  
As her bodyguard, of course he takes the bullet intended for her. It isn't the last time.

Other times, it's sheer chance. A trip out of town for her to guest lecture on anomalies that goes wrong, or he just happens to be present for a robbery and takes matters into his own hands. 

She's always furious with him for leaving her early.

So of course she starts to resist it. She learns to recognize the glint in his eye when he feels like he has to do something, anything, no matter the cost. She fights to keep him at the institute, at home, anywhere she can keep an eye on him.

He'd be hard pressed to admit it, but he enjoys those iterations a great deal more than he lets on. He tries to use them to keep his skills in the kitchen sharp, sharing recipes with Sakura but also quietly competing with her. During those lives, holidays and birthdays become a race to present Rin with the most impressive spread, to her amusement ( and token complaints about her waistline ).

Until, that is, the year when he realizes she's been egging both of them on, rotating the declared winner in order to motivate the other. The grin she sports when he confronts her has him furious – and yet, somehow impressed.

* * *

They all develop their own theories after enough iterations. Illya stirs her darjeeling while he pecks at a tiny sandwich, musing that perhaps at the moment of that first death, the person known as Emiya changed too much to be just _Shirou_ any longer. That feels like what happened to her, after all; she just has the chance to die far less often. And she's not feeling too curious, so she's not going to experiment, thank you very much. Without natural death looming behind her, the next regeneration won't be for decades, or even centuries.

"You should try it sometime," she says dryly as he makes to leave, swinging her feet. They never do reach the floor. "You could be a weird perma instead of a weird repeat, and you'd never know it! Have you ever even made it past sixty?"

He stifles his irritation and just drawls that his chances are slim to age as _gracefully_ as she has, earning a pout that almost makes him regret pushing her buttons. But she _did_ start it.

Shirou himself is clueless, as useless for discussion on the matter as he is for everything else.

He needs everything filled in for him except for his own relationships, and sometimes even those, which are expected to filter back to any peat these days. Not just the weird ones who can remember a time when even _that_ was considered anomalous, too. Maybe the split left him without the capability of retention.

Who knows. All they have is theories, and Shirou certainly isn't making any breakthroughs.

But he _does_ contribute one idea that doesn't leave Archer alone. It’s towards the end of a rather tense dinner. Hot out, so maybe zarusoba, they suggest aloud in tandem, which leads to the first fight of the night. They both refuse to relinquish cooking, so they make it side by side in the kitchen with grim expressions and few words, julienning vegetables back to back. Sakura makes the mistake of pointing out Shirou's slight tan this summer, and it’s all the excuse they need. The two pick at their differences, building a list of them aggressively, Archer is so many centimeters taller, Shirou’s eyes gold instead of gray. Finally, the fact that they've settled down with different women.

That's when Shirou snaps his fingers and points across the table, scowling at him. "Well! Maybe _I'm_ the original, and you're just the copy that split off because I didn't want Rin to be lonely!"

The thought sticks with him even after Sakura has to pull them away from each other.

( Shirou is stronger than he looks, but Archer fights dirty, and she had seen his eyebrow twitch and his thumbs bend towards Shirou's eyes )

He knows that it's fanciful and unlikely, but something about it nags at him through that life and the next. Eventually, years later, he floats the concept past her. Rin scoffs at him, and says that he's not supposed to be _the stupid Emiya_. He bites his tongue on the fact that Shirou suggested it first, in favor of sulking for the rest of the night.

It’s total nonsense. It’s not based in anything resembling fact. And Archer, of the pair of them, is not the one given to sentimentality. It’s a little maudlin.

But he also feels that offhanded insult so bone-deep that he has to ( bitterly ) wonder if all of this is just another casualty of how badly he hated to see anyone cry.

He still does.

* * *

He puts it off for so long that she has to ask him, and he regrets it for the rest of his life.

Several, in fact.

He probably should have known that something was amiss when she took him out to dinner without bragging about the cost. The restaurant is a glittering new affair in the heart of downtown, swiftly gaining a reputation for dishes that are a fusion of science, art, and culture. It's all a little too fancy for him, and overwhelming. The carrots are _foamed_ , however one foams a carrot. Things are served “deconstructed”.

He takes care to wait until the server is out of earshot before he mutters that he would probably have preferred to cook his own versions at home. Recipes where carrots are actually carrots, and he isn’t left to sullenly reassemble his artfully strewn banh mi.  
Rin looks shocked for a moment, before pouting dramatically and folding her arms. "You ingrate!" _She_ doesn't care about whether the waiter hears.

He doesn't realize what he's messed up until they get back, when she throws a small velvet box against his chest with a dull _thwump_. He sleeps on the couch.

By way of apology, he _does_ recreate the menu the next night, dropping several hundred dollars on ingredients. It's not a parade of avant-garde original creations, but the portions are bigger, and he seasons it to her exact tastes. On the side of the final dessert plate ( cheesecake, salted caramel, not cloyingly sweet ) is the jewelry box, and she doesn't fling it at him this time.  
She still tells everyone that she asked first, though.

He lets her.

* * *

She wants a western style wedding, with all the flowers and lace and catering that that implies. He sighs and allows her the first two, but puts his foot down when it comes to the food. If the day is about them, he doesn't want to leave something so personal up to somebody else.

Rin rolls her eyes, but after his acquiescence to the length of her dress train, she lets him take over. It probably doesn't hurt when he points out that managing the food himself will save them money that can go towards nearly ten feet of white silk. ( _and pearls! i want pearls on it!_ ) All he ever has to do with Tohsaka is quote figures. Miserly girl, he thinks.

Besides, they don't have many mouths to feed. The ceremony is small, with only their respective sisters and some very close friends in attendance. They both agree to be officiated by _anyone_ other than the family priest. Illya sits with crossed arms and knees at the distant left of the front row, watching the proceedings smugly. ( Her bodyguard sits beside, taking up three seats. ) Sakura is a mess, her cheeks streaked wet and her hiccuping sobs the ambient soundtrack. Shirou chooses not to attend.  
It's probably for the best. He would _never_ have let Archer forget the moment Rin shoved the cake against his face, cackling.

She wants their honeymoon in europe. He points out that she already owns a mansion, what could erance possibly have to offer? She says she should have known that he would say something _totally_ unromantic like that, and _fine_ , he can stay at home while she sees the world without him!

Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she stomps out of the room too early to see his smug look.

He's grateful that he already bought and printed the tickets, and placed them carefully on her pillow, or else she might think that she'd somehow changed his mind.

He can't let her feel like she's won _too_ often.


End file.
